More & More New Authors Only Receiving an Ebook Deal?

A lot depends on the type of book and publisher. There are lots of small presses and imprints of the larger publishers doing ebook only or digital first, especially in genres like Romance where there is a high rate of readers who read ebooks. Others are more likely to do print, even for new authors, because print is what their readers want.

The amount expected to sell is a factor too. A print run is a risk with a new author. The publisher might never shift them all. Print on demand is less of a risk since they don't print books up front.

Fantomas said:

I ask this because I've seen novels for Random House's Alibi imprint that only allow ebook downloads. Is this a trend of the future or just a way to save money until the sales merit a print deal?

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My guess is it's more due to the fact that Alibi is an ebook imprint.

Jeff

I recently sold a romance series to Penguin (see avatar!), and my agent said it was lucky/impressive that we found someone willing to offer a print deal to a new (in that genre and with that penname, at least) author.

It may depend somewhat on the genre. With Romance, there's a well-developed e-book market, so it may make sense to start there and work your way into bookstores with proven sales. With other genres, where e-books aren't as prominent, print books may still be the more likely starting point?

My erotic romance debut was in digital e-book, and never made it into print (it's okay, I have eventual Plans for that). My agent is shopping a more-mainstream fantasy novel for me right now, and we're aiming at print first, through a Big Five imprint. There would be a digital version, too.

I don't have a lot of knowledge of all the different markets, so take this with a huge grain of salt, but the mystery/thriller genre feels to me like more of a hard copy genre. Depending on the type of thriller it is (psychological vs cop vs military), it might be more male reader or female reader dominated, but I imagine a lot of thriller readers as being somewhat older. When I think of writers like Brad Thor and David Baldacci, I imagine they are read more by older men than other demographics. This is just my opinion, of course. That being said, a lot of older readers, especially men (sorry to anyone who doesn't like my over generalization) prefer "dead tree" books to ebooks. The ones that I know, anyway. This might not be indicative of the market as a whole, but it seems likely to me.

I hope this was helpful and not just a random diatribe

Fantomas said:

Does anyone have any info on mystery/thriller novels only getting ebook deals?

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A writer I know had his crime thriller published by Harper's Witness Impulse imprint, which is e-first. It sold really well, landing on some best-seller list, and they put out a print version. I can see why; it was a gripping book. I think he said the printing depended on the initial sales as an ebook, so maybe this is a way for publishers to see if a book has a potential larger audience.

Another local author, published by a micro-press, has done really well with his crime thrillers in Kindle format. There may also be a print version, but he seems to be selling lots of ebooks. So I think there's a market, though it's not nearly as large as in romance.

If you do a e-book deal, you can always go to a POD yourself if you're careful with your contract. Lots of POD out there, and if the book name or the author name hits big enough, readers will pretty much automatically go to Amazon to find it - and then it will be in both e-book and print - especially if you do it thru Create-space.

Got two books going up pretty soon - one in Scout, so have 16 days, then one tomorrow, and one in a month or so. All e-book first because I have no interest in traditional publisher anymore -- too many ways to control it yourself if you put in the time. Once e-book launches, then I'll take the time to get print launched ... And, "me" is very tech dumb, but still fairly easy. In know, I know, we'd all rather write than PR, but if we get it done right, eventually you can write, and NO PR, and still find success.

Fantomas said:

Interesting. I'm just weary that this will become the standard business model for new authors; e-book first, print later if your sales merit it. I understand it from a publisher's perspective, but I think most writers want a hard copy of their book.

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It's definitely not the standard model in YA or MG; print first is the norm. I'm guessing not in lit fic, mystery or SFF, either. But it could be a model the Big Five are starting to experiment with in a few genres. That's just a guess, since I don't work in publishing...

Fantomas said:

Interesting. I'm just weary that this will become the standard business model for new authors; e-book first, print later if your sales merit it. I understand it from a publisher's perspective, but I think most writers want a hard copy of their book.

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Having a hard copy of your book is nice (I know I'm inclined to fondle my author copies lovingly.) And it's good to have print available as an option for readers who don't use ereaders.

But, in the digital first world, the royalty on the sale of a ebook is usually much higher than on print. From a hard-headed rather than an emotional perspective, in my genre at least, ebooks make me more money than print books.

It also creates more flexibility in terms of word count. Some things are too short or too long to be worth publishing in print. They just won't make the publisher enough money. But with ebooks the book can be any length. I've got a couple of things out that are longer than short stories, but shorter than might be called novellas, lengths like 18k, 22k words. If the only option was print, they'd have been much harder to sell.

WeaselFire said:

My guess is it's more due to the fact that Alibi is an ebook imprint.

Jeff

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Yes. lol
If the author submitted to Alibi they would have known they were not getting a print deal. Although Alibi may do some print on demand for books that are very popular in ebook first.

Fantomas said:

Interesting. I'm just weary that this will become the standard business model for new authors; e-book first, print later if your sales merit it. I understand it from a publisher's perspective, but I think most writers want a hard copy of their book.

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I don't think this issue is really about "new" authors.

I do see a lot of agents, including agents with good reputations getting deals at digital first imprints. (Which tend to be ebook plus print on demand, not mass market publication)

And I know those imprints do not require an agent for submission. And I do wonder in those cases if the agent is really doing that much for the author, when they're getting them a deal with an imprint that they could have submitted directly to, and that does not offer advances. But I don't know all the ins and outs. I'm just a little suspicious.

As stated Alibi is openly an ebook only imprint that authors can submit direct to without an agent.

I don't know that it's so much "fewer and fewer authors getting a print deal." I think it may actually be more and more authors getting ebook deals that may not have got any deal at all in the past.

gingerwoman said:

And I know those imprints do not require an agent for submission. And I do wonder in those cases if the agent is really doing that much for the author, when they're getting them a deal with an imprint that they could have submitted directly to, and that does not offer advances. But I don't know all the ins and outs. I'm just a little suspicious.

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It's possible that the agent has already shopped the book to the larger publishers (where an agent IS required) with no success, and then taken the book to the e-pubs. There was that one agent a couple years ago who advertised herself as an e-book agent, and I agree with you there - that's not a business model that makes sense to me, and I don't think she'd be doing enough for her authors to justify her 15%. But an agent who starts the book at the bigs and then goes to the smalls? That makes sense to me.

Captcha said:

It's possible that the agent has already shopped the book to the larger publishers (where an agent IS required) with no success, and then taken the book to the e-pubs. There was that one agent a couple years ago who advertised herself as an e-book agent, and I agree with you there - that's not a business model that makes sense to me, and I don't think she'd be doing enough for her authors to justify her 15%. But an agent who starts the book at the bigs and then goes to the smalls? That makes sense to me.

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But if all the big publishers said no. I'm just not sure I'd want an agent for those smalls, because I'm not sure it would be worth the 15%. I know for example agents getting a deal with my publisher, got people an advance (which I did not get) but the advance was less than I made in my first month with the publisher, and I get paid month by my publisher, so it seems to me that I did better without an agent in that instance, because I made more than the advance agented authors received in my first month, and didn't have to pay 15% on it.

But of course there may be contract ins and outs that I don't know about. As I said, I'm not sure I'm right, but I'm somewhat suspicious about the value.

gingerwoman said:

But if all the big publishers said no. I'm just not sure I'd want an agent for those smalls, because I'm not sure it would be worth the 15%. I know for example agents getting a deal with my publisher, got people an advance (which I did not get) but the advance was less than I made in my first month with the publisher, and I get paid month by my publisher, so it seems to me that I did better without an agent in that instance, because I made more than the advance agented authors received in my first month, and didn't have to pay 15% on it.

But of course there may be contract ins and outs that I don't know about. As I said, I'm not sure I'm right, but I'm somewhat suspicious about the value.

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For me, there'd be kind of a loyalty thing - like, if the agent did a good job and spent a year or whatever submitting to the bigs, but couldn't find anyone who wanted the story, it wouldn't feel right (to me) to cut her out of a deal with the smalls.

So, for sure, if the agent was STARTING with the smalls, I don't think it would make sense. But as part of a business relationship, I think it might make sense to give the 15% if the story ENDS with the smalls. Not so much about value for this individual deal, but more about value in the long run?

Captcha said:

For me, there'd be kind of a loyalty thing - like, if the agent did a good job and spent a year or whatever submitting to the bigs, but couldn't find anyone who wanted the story, it wouldn't feel right (to me) to cut her out of a deal with the smalls.

So, for sure, if the agent was STARTING with the smalls, I don't think it would make sense. But as part of a business relationship, I think it might make sense to give the 15% if the story ENDS with the smalls. Not so much about value for this individual deal, but more about value in the long run?

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What is the value in the long run, of paying someone to get you a deal, that you could have got on your own? I'm not being snarky I'm wondering what I may be missing.

gingerwoman said:

What is the value in the long run, of paying someone to get you a deal, that you could have got on your own? I'm not being snarky I'm wondering what I may be missing.

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Maintaining a strong relationship with the agent.

I don't know if there are widely understood guidelines for this sort of thing, but for ME, for my standards of how I want to deal with people, it's important that I not take advantage of others (as well as not being taken advantage of). So, again, this is a totally personal decision and I have no idea whether it's something others would share, but for me it would be taking advantage of the agent's time to have her spend hours and hours trying to get a big deal for me and then, when she's unable to do so, making my own smaller deal without her.

There may also be a more practical benefit in that she may be less interested in trying to sell future works for me if she knows it's a bigs-or-nothing situation. I don't think any agent is going to refuse to represent a book she believes is going to sell to the bigs just because she got cut out of a previous deal, but if there's a borderline book (for example, one of my m/m romances that I think might be able to bust out of the e-book world) I can see her being more interested in making an effort for it if she knows she'll at least get SOMETHING for her time, eventually.

But mostly for me, it's a relationship thing. I truly believe my agent does her best to sell my book with the big guys, and I'd like her to get some financial rewards for that, even if she's not successful. So the long term benefit is that I feel good about myself, her, and our relationship.

Captcha said:

Maintaining a strong relationship with the agent.

I don't know if there are widely understood guidelines for this sort of thing, but for ME, for my standards of how I want to deal with people, it's important that I not take advantage of others (as well as not being taken advantage of). So, again, this is a totally personal decision and I have no idea whether it's something others would share, but for me it would be taking advantage of the agent's time to have her spend hours and hours trying to get a big deal for me and then, when she's unable to do so, making my own smaller deal without her.

There may also be a more practical benefit in that she may be less interested in trying to sell future works for me if she knows it's a bigs-or-nothing situation. I don't think any agent is going to refuse to represent a book she believes is going to sell to the bigs just because she got cut out of a previous deal, but if there's a borderline book (for example, one of my m/m romances that I think might be able to bust out of the e-book world) I can see her being more interested in making an effort for it if she knows she'll at least get SOMETHING for her time, eventually.

But mostly for me, it's a relationship thing. I truly believe my agent does her best to sell my book with the big guys, and I'd like her to get some financial rewards for that, even if she's not successful. So the long term benefit is that I feel good about myself, her, and our relationship.

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Right, right. I mean that's what I figured you'd say about maintaining the relationship, which totally makes sense, if the agent is able to provide other things that are of value to you in the business relationship.

Having not yet, ever tried to get an agent, I have a limited knowledge of what all goes on behind the scenes. So far I've really only pursued the digital first market on my own, but I think I might like to try all paths eventually with different projects.

By all paths I mean eventually some self publishing, and maybe try to pitch a certain type of book to an agent at some point. There are so many options out there, it gets confusing which to try.

But back on topic I'll say again, that I think the OP is wrong about "fewer and fewer authors getting a print deal", because I think the situation is really more about options broadening, and publishers taking on good books that they wouldn't have risked trying out on the mass market paperback scene, but that they'll give a chance to in ebook.

However from talking with other authors and reading writer message boards, there is a wide spectrum, in terms of which publishers are worth taking these digital first, or digital only deals with, and unfortunately bigger is not always better.

Some of the big publishers are giving authors a reasonable deal on their digital only books, and some are giving authors a very poor deal indeed. So be sure to do your research.

gingerwoman said:

By all paths I mean eventually some self publishing, and maybe try to pitch a certain type of book to an agent at some point. There are so many options out there, it gets confusing which to try.

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I've done all three (self, smaller e-pub, and Big 5 through agent) and unless I get a book somewhere that really takes off and becomes a game-changer, I intend to keep doing all three. It's fun, and nice to have multiple egg-baskets!

But back on topic I'll say again, that I think the OP is wrong about "fewer and fewer authors getting a print deal", because I think the situation is really more about options broadening, and publishers taking on good books that they wouldn't have risked trying out on the mass market paperback scene, but that they'll give a chance to in ebook.

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If we accept that the general book market isn't growing all that fast, and then figure that there are areas of book production that ARE growing pretty fast, I think it makes sense to assume that some other areas of book production are probably shrinking. So with the rise of self-publishing and e-only books, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that print books are taking a hit. (I don't want to go look up the research, but I'm pretty sure this is supported by sales data). So, probably it IS harder to get a print book published these days, because it's easier to get other kinds of books published.

However from talking with other authors and reading writer message boards, there is a wide spectrum, in terms of which publishers are worth taking these digital first, or digital only deals with, and unfortunately bigger is not always better.

Some of the big publishers are giving authors a reasonable deal on their digital only books, and some are giving authors a very poor deal indeed. So be sure to do your research.

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I totally agree. And it's not just the deal itself, it's also the effort put in by the publisher to sell the books. Some of the smaller e-pubs are really, REALLY good at finding their readers - DSP does all the translations and a lot of audiobooks, Entangled is aggressive with pricing and helping writers promote themselves, Riptide is doing good work at getting reviews from larger publications, etc. - I could be missing it, but I haven't seen similar levels of hustle from the e-only imprints of the Big 5.

We had a thread a while back in which someone was trying to decide between going with an e-only imprint of a large pub vs. an established smaller e-pub, like Samhain, and there was a general consensus that there was no easy answer to that.